I played golf recently on a Saturday morning and that's rare enough to warrant a post. My wife's friend Loggy and his family were up for the weekend and, though my wife hadn't mentioned that I could golf, Loggy thoughtfully brought his sticks. Sitting around a late night bonfire Loggy and I were trying to figure out whether we'd get a pass to play in the morning while our wives took the kids to the beach. When we finally crashed at 1:00 AM we still were being told that golf was out if we wanted to remain married. At 5:45 my youngest son woke us up and my wife turned to me and snapped, "If you're golfing, you should already be gone." Thank god I slept in my golf clothes. We were out the door in about 30 seconds.

Since we had no tee time we were hoping for the best and we lucked out as a twosome was on the first tee. It was a father son duo so we made introductions and hit away. From the first tee shot it was painfully apparent that the kid was going to be a problem. While he had game, he had some serious delusions about just how much he had. Every single shot that didn't go in the hole was followed by bellowing and tantrums with lines like,

"I'm an IDIOT!" and "I'm such a MORON," rang out accompanied by club slamming and foot stomping. His dad said nothing except to offer encouragement after decent shots. And when he did that, the son turned his anger toward his father. Loggy and I just looked at each other in disbelief.

Maybe this is one the downsides to Tigermania. Both Tiger and his hero Nicklaus are famous for their displays of being upset at anything less than perfection although Tiger has gone way past anything Nicklaus ever did. Even during yesterday's final round at Cog Hill where Tiger fired a 63 and was hitting near perfect shots on every hole, the cameras picked up plenty of cursing and petulance. Tiger simply does not have fun while he's playing tournament golf and unfortunately that's all we see of him.

That may be what you have to do to be the world's best but to play with someone like that is a pain the ass. I wouldn't say the kid ruined our round, as we quickly started mocking him behind his back like the mature adults we are, but it was depressing to see how messed up his self-image was. Cussing yourself out, like my friend Gus does when he shanks one, just doesn't get the job done and is proven to add strokes to your game. Yes, I said proven. I read it somewhere. Even worse, a week later when I mentioned to the bartender that I had played with a father/son combo and that the son was an IDIOT, she knew exactly who I was talking about. Word gets around.

Alright, the real reason I was bummed was because I didn't have the perfect response. Of course I thought about yelling "Idiot!" and "Moron!" to him after he hit but that seemed too easy and maybe even too harsh. I thought about yelling at myself so he could hear how stupid he sounded but I was afraid of making myself cry.

And here's the kicker. You know how when you are grinding away and you have a horrible hole where nothing is going right and all of a sudden you walk up and swipe in a 30 footer for triple? With the pressure off good things happen, right? Well, Loggy and I both shot our best rounds of the year, probably because we were so focused on the lad we dubbed Spalding. Come to think of it, I can't wait for Gus to shank another one.

E-mail this entry to a friend